Jane Urquhart
Photo courtesy of One Book, One CommunityIn her novels, Jane Urquhart evokes the dynamic presence of certain unique historic moments, and enriches her narratives by weaving in a cameos of real people.
My favourite is the The Stone Carvers (McClelland and Stewart 2001), a novel that reveals the longstanding multicultural history of Canada. Urquhart brings the reader face to face with the little-known sculptor Walter-Allward, who designed and oversaw the carving of the vast marble monument at Vimy to Canadian casualties of the Great War.
The novel is full of subtle ironies. Allward imports marble from Italy and hires only Italians to work on his monument; when WWII comes, however, the monument will stand in a battlefield again and the Italians will be on the enemy side. Tilman repeatedly runs away, but must still come home to himself. Of German descent, Klara falls in love with the young Irishman Eamon, who love with airplanes and leaves her to join the air force and learn to fly.
The Stone Carvers was nominated for the ScotiaBank Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Awards, and the Man Booker Prize.
In Away (McClelland and Stewart 1993), Urquhart creates a dramatic scene behind the Parliament Buildings, when a fictitious girl enthralled by love changes Canadian history by causing the assassination she is trying to prevent. The great statesman Thomas D'Arcy McGee, whose statue may be seen today on Parliament Hill really was assassinated. This novel was co-winner of the Trillium Award as well as being nominated for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Other works by Urquhart have also received literary recognition. Her first novel, The Whirlpool (1990), which features the poet Robert Browning at Niagara Falls, was awarded Le prix du meilleur livre etranger (Best foreign book prize, France).
The Underpainter (1997) won the Governor General's Award for fiction, and A Map of Glass (2006) was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.